Wingless Flight: The Lifting Body Story (NASA History Series SP-4220)

Most lifting bodies, or flying bathtubs as they were called, were so ugly only an engineer could love them, and yet, what an elegant way to keep wings from burning off in supersonic flight between earth and orbit. Working in their spare time (because they couldn t initially get official permission), Dale Reed and his team of engineers demonstrated the potential of the design that led to the Space Shuttle.

Wingless Flight takes us behind the scenes with just the right blend of technical detail and fascinating detail (the crash of M2-F2 found new life as the opening credit for TV s The Six Million Dollar Man ). The flying bathtub, itself, is finding new life as the proposed escape-pod for the Space Station.

R. Dale Reed retired from NASA's Dryden Flight Research Center in 1985 but still works with NASA as a contract engineer. He has authored numerous articles and technical reports, managed nineteen NASA programs, including the flight test of a prototype Mars airplane, and acquired four patents.